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When we say we don’t know what to do, it isn’t entirely true.

We always know what to do. We just don’t know whether what we want to do will work out or not.

That fear of failure paralyses us from anticipating even the good that might come out of it.

What if we asked ourselves: What is the worst case?
What if we imagined that worst case playing out in reality?
And when we did, what if we asked ourselves: “Will I be okay despite that?”

If we somehow get to a point where we will be okay despite the worst case scenario actually playing through, the tough decision won’t be tough anymore.

Visualising the worst case scenario doesn’t make the future worse, it just makes the present better by helping us decide.

There are two kinds of pressures:
Performance pressure and Peer pressure.

Performance pressure is the one we apply on ourselves.That we have to deliver. That we have to win. That we have to achieve.
It is the story in our head.

Peer pressure is the one we experience due to others. That they are doing so well. That there is so much to learn from them. That I too can be just as good. 

We tend to perform better when we are surrounded by performers and achievers.
That is how top athletes train themselves. 

Pressure can make a hard potato soft and a soft egg hard.
Choose your pressure!

In our parents’ generation, it was a privilege to be a specialist.
To be the best and fastest in the world at one thing was the only way to survive.

With unlimited opportunities in the information age, things have reversed.
As someone who wants to climb the corporate ladder, our role is managing people instead of core work.
This needs breadth, experience and understanding of work, in addition to core skills.

Thus, becoming a generalist comes with possibilities of broader spectrum and a stronger profile.

If we are a generalist, we have a speciality of taking different paths.

We’re confused about what to do in life.
And, college education certainly hasn’t helped.

Why not explore our way through life, instead of being in a hurry to settle down?
Try out stand up comedy and share videos, and look at the reactions of people.
Create music if we love it, and see if others resonate with it
Get internships in design or coding, if that is what intrigues you.

It is better to be lost and busy in the chase of finding yourself, instead of being lost and busy in the rat race of never knowing yourself.

You have two ideas for your startup, but not sure which one to start with.
Or perhaps two job offers.
Or two career options, and you cannot decide.

You are looking for a solution, but to no avail.

What if we looked for questions instead, whenever we were faced with a dilemma?

Why do I want to make that decision in the first place?
What would change for me because of that decision?
What do we want from that decision?

Looking for questions instead of solutions is about asking questions about the problem.

There are some days during the year when Instagram is down..
Sometimes Facebook is, WhatsApp is, Twitter as well.
Very recently when that happened with Google, we all lost it.

“Dependency” was the word of the day.

We suddenly didn’t know what to do. How to spend our time. All we kept doing was check the platform incessantly, showing how much we depend on it.

The next time a platform goes down, try a crazy thing: Go for a walk. Your world is what your eyes see, not what the screen shows! .

We own the screens we own. Not the other way round.

I will spend time with my family later.
That email is important.

I will say “I love you” to my loved ones later.
That love for work is more important.

I will call my parents over the weekend.
Grind on the weekdays is more important.

I don’t have the time!

However, we will have all the time in the world if we had the time for the most important people in our life.

Time is the only thing that is important. Because we never know when will we run out of it.

One of the mistakes we make early in our lives is feeling morally obligated to help others.

If we have something that they don’t, maybe we could help.
And when we do offer our help and that still doesn’t help, we feel we must have done something wrong.
Thus starts a vicious cycle of self-blame and self-criticism.

Except that it helps no one.
And certainly makes no one happy.

When we really want to help others, we could start with listening. Not trying to help, instead just listening. .
And being positive.
While we may still not be able to give them “things”, we will still give them the right vibe.

A rather unusual way to help others, is to be happy yourself.

Go to college, get your education, and chill for the rest of your life.

The biggest lie that was ever told and sold to us.

Why do we go to college?
To learn something? Not really, everything is accessible online.
To get a degree? We could do it from correspondence.
To run away from parents? Maybe that would never help.

We go to college not to learn things, rather to develop an attitude – an attitude of a student.
Once we know how to be a student, we’ve taken the best thing out of college

We go to college to learn how to become a student whenever we have to!

1. Almanack of Naval Ravikant: What a stunning and thoughtful compilation of Naval Ravikant‘s work and words. I predict that this is going to define a new industry – curating public content of thought leaders and converting them into books.
2. Waking Up: Search for spirituality without religion Sam Harris provoked me through this book and offered me, an atheist, a lot to think about. Pick up his works!
3. Psychology of Money: My most awaited book of this year, since the day Morgan Housel announced his book. A must read for all ages, especially those in their 20’s. I predict this to reach levels of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” over the next 10 years.
4. Courage to be disliked: What a stunner! Challenges most of our tightly-held beliefs and I found myself nodding more often than not through the book. Not for the faint-hearted.
5. One from many: VISA and the rise of chaordic organization This was the biggest surprise of 2020. I started it with little expectations and was blown away by the story of how VISA came to being. Much read for all fin-tech enthusiasts.
6. What you do is who you are: Ben Horowitz strikes again, after “The Hard Thing about Hard Things”. This is a different yet joyous read from his earlier book and does the job well of establishing culture as a critical input to business success.
7. Siddhartha: An Indian Tale This was a long time due book and I am so glad I got to it this year. Any other year I may not have appreciated it as much. Such a powerful book to read and reflect upon. Set during the time of the Buddha.
8. No Rules Rules: Reed Hastings’ first book. if you have read the Netflix Culture Deck, then this is a great follow up book. A must-read for all founders and business leaders.
9. Laws of human nature: Robert Green calls a spade a spade. And this book brings all his spades together! It is hard-hitting, it is unapologetically real and it kept me hooked.
10. The moral animal: The new science of evolutionary psychology This is hands down the most provocative science books that I have read. Gripping read, that tries to explain why we are the way we are!
11. Range: how generalists triumph in a specialized world If you want the class generalist vs specialist question answered, this is the book for you. David Epstein has written a beauty. One of the best reads of the year for me.
12. Awareness: They key to living in balance This is was my first read by OSHO and I quite liked it. In more ways than I expected, he made a lot of sense and his ideas were hard to not appreciate. I would surely recommend this to many.
13. On the shortness of life: I remain such an admirer of Seneca and his timeless wisdom. And every year find myself going back to some form of Stoic reading. This book was my highlight from the year.

I tracked some numbers down for 2020:

1. This year I read 37 books.
2. 5 of them were re-reads.
3. Of the 32 new books, I didn’t complete 9 of them (Autobiography of Yogi being the most important one that I wish I had).
4. There were 47 days in 2020 when I did not read at all.

In addition to these books, I also converted 5 of my twitter threads in illustrated eBooks.
You can download them for free here.

Here is a thread I wrote about how I read my books.

Here are 20 books that have benefitted me a lot in life

I would love recommendations for 2021 (am building my list right now).

I love reading:

• Entrepreneurship
• Human Psychology
• Philosophy
• Autobiographies/Biographies

PS: I only read non-fiction.

No – I don’t intend to change that :)